Criteria for the assessment of quality of health information available online

Abstract

Internet is creating new opportunities to improve decision-making and communications in health. Despite its obvious benefits, if no appropriate selection and evaluation of the information, the increase of the information availability could also result in many potentially harmful effects on both consumers and health professionals. Hence, they must choose appropriate resources to guide their decisions. The goal of this study is to identify through a literature review the criteria proposed by the authors to assess the quality of the information on health in web sites. The results show that, in spite of the availability of many different methods for evaluating the quality of the information about health, there are no standard criteria.

Keywords

• Internet
• medical informatics
• health